The Joker Blogs: The Unauthorized Novelization
by ZombieDinosaur
Summary: Shortly after the events of The Dark Knight, The Joker, newly named Patient #4479, is admitted to Arkham Asylum. There, under the watchful care of Doctor Harleen Quinzel, an attempt to treat the criminal mastermind begins. Therapy soon becomes personal and the hospital staff soon realize that their patient is the only thing that will be left unchanged.
1. The Prologue

**Well…what can I say? **

**I have a slight obsession…**

**This series is actually not mine…I didn't make it. I don't own it. But I do own this version of it. **

**Well…me, Samuel Inglis, and Jonathan Anthony. But enough about that. Yes…I had to get help with creating this awesome series. Which, again, I didn't create. The Joker Blogs is a web series that is meant as a prequel to The Dark Knight Rises. This is a novelization. Nothing more. Scott McClure gets all the credit. Go thank him after you watch this series. My series, The Nightwing Series, does follow this series as if it fits into the trilogy, which it does. Quite well. So please enjoy this series. All three of us worked very hard on this and we continue to work very hard at this series. We wanted to capture what happens before and after the camera is turned on or off. I do hope you enjoy it. What am I talking about? Of course you will! This is the only author's note**

THE JOKER BLOGS

THE UNAUTHORIZED NOVELIZATION

DANIEL BLACK

and

SAMUEL INGLIS

and

JONATHAN ANTHONY

**PROLOGUE:**

Dr. Jeremiah Arkham's car idly waited for the gateway to open as the on-duty guard checked the good doctor's ID card. It was a totally pointless exercise. The guard knew who he was and what business he had in the Narrows. After all, it was his name above the asylum doors.

Yet this city had suffered too many inexplicable and horrific catastrophes over the past ten months to allow security protocols for a place like Arkham Island to work on common sense. The guard returned Arkham's card and motioned for him to enter. The great steel gates opened as Arkham's car drove across the bridge – the ferry into the Underworld.

The council's decision to convert the Narrows into a playground for the criminally insane was always going to be controversial, but Jeremiah doubted if anybody had anticipated just how much of a logistical nightmare it ended up being. For starters, the asylum had to cater for over three hundred new inmates after Dr. Jonathan Crane's biological attack on the Narrows had driven them out of their minds. Committing them all required mountains of paperwork, contacting a plethora of relatives, and displacing thousands of people whose minds had been spared from the irreparable damage of Dr. Crane's fear toxin by the mass-produced vaccine that even now had barely been administered to a quarter of the city's populace.

Then there was a matter of separating the mass murderers and serial killers from the paranoid schizophrenic sons and daughters of Gotham's high society. Nobody wanted their damaged babies in the same ward as Gotham City's rogues' gallery, and separating the two was integral to keeping the asylum's funding alive. There were some very dangerous men on this island: Crane, Thomas Schiff, Victor Zsasz (who had recently been recaptured after almost six months on the run), Jacob Feely, Carmine Falcone, and potentially now the most terrifying terrorist Gotham, and possibly even the whole country, had ever faced.

And of course there was the matter of 'the Bat'. After the Narrows incident it became demonstrably apparent that the Gotham Police Department were on friendlier terms with the caped crusader than they were when he had first showed them up for being the ineffectual simpletons Arkham always knew they were. _Hell, that signal in the sky was pretty much a dead giveaway. _Yet that hadn't stopped them from persuading Arkham to engage in a lot of below board dealings. Some patients were admitted without any notice of their capture or processing, and the doctor just had to grin and bear the gross bureaucratic violations of Lieutenant Gordon's lackeys. _Where did you find them? What state were they in? Did they experience any trauma in your custody?_ All were questions that were brushed off with an arrogance that Arkham had learned to tolerate over the years.

Everyone thought the same thing. _Who was Jeremiah Arkham anyway, but a young pipsqueak with a university degree and a whopping great inheritance?_

All that stopped though the moment when Batman had been declared Public Enemy #1 by the Gotham Police Department after supposedly going on a killing rampage that had cost the lives of two of Gordon's officers, mob boss Salvatore Maroni, and the city's white knight himself, District Attorney Harvey Dent. The majority of people were unsure as to why the Batman had chosen to become the vigilante so many people virulently denied he was from the start, but few seemed to deny that the terrorist known as the Joker was at the centre of it. The trial had concluded that the Joker had been the sole mastermind of his campaign of death, yet throughout the case the man gave the distinct impression that he was hiding something. Nobody could prove what, but many did speculate that perhaps this 'Batman' might have had some deeper, more malicious motive behind his vigilantism than the public originally thought. _Perhaps this Joker and this Bat-man were not on as bad terms as the police had led many of us to believe._

Mozart's _Piano Concerto No. 21 _played over Arkham's stereo as he drove through the make-shift penal community, creating a dissonance that somehow put a lot of things into perspective for Jeremiah. The car approached the main building, where the most violent and high-risk patients were incarcerated. It had once been the whole asylum. The legacy of the Arkham dynasty had spiralled out over an entire island, much like a plague or a weed. And Jeremiah Arkham knew all this was in someone else's sights.

Arkham parked the car in his reserved space and was greeted by the orderlies as he approached the large, vaguely Gothic doors of the asylum. With them was Arkham's 'nurse', Pearl. He was always confused by that job title. Jeremiah didn't have any need for a nurse. He was a very healthy, thin young man, and was mentally quite well-rounded, despite a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome. He'd always presumed it was a synonym for 'secretary', since that was largely the function she performed for him. Admittedly, she did also oversee the seventh ward, but that was largely incidental. She was Arkham's PA, and sometimes Jeremiah wished the asylum staff would just call her that. 'Nurse' it remained, though, and Arkham didn't feel the need to defy the staff on so trivial a concern.

Pearl and Arkham exchanged pleasantries as they ascended the main staircase. Looking confident but somehow inappropriate in her black, nicely-tailored suit, Pearl held a clipboard and pen as she began reading Dr. Arkham's agenda for the day.

"The electricians are going to need another day or so to fix the faulty voltage on the east side. Some insurance issue. Mr. Flannegan from the Health Department wants to check our food preparation facilities again, claims he discovered rat droppings in the flour-"

Arkham rolled his eyes. "God, that man has some type of rodent schizophrenia. This establishment has been treating Gotham's sanitation laws like the Qu'ran for the last two hundred years and they still don't have anything better to do with their time than to pester us about phantom rat crap."

"I take it you won't meet with him, then?" said Pearl sarcastically.

"Yes, I still have something that resembles a life. Anything else?"

Dr. Arkham and Nurse Pearl had arrived outside Arkham's office.

"Yes, your nine o'clock is here."

"I don't have a nine o'clock."

"You didn't have a nine o'clock, but he was terribly insistent."

Arkham, wary of who it was that might have scheduled the appointment, opened the door to the reception area outside his office and walked inside. Sitting in one of the chairs lining the wall, a 'Reader's Digest' in his hands, was a man Arkham was in no way pleased to see. The corpulent civil servant looked up from his copy of the Digest and stood, extending his hand to Arkham.

"Dr. Arkham, nice to see you again."

Dr. Arkham, making no attempt to sound sincere, returned the greeting. "Same here, Mr. Fields."

District Attorney Vernon Fields was about as 'nice to see' to see as a vomiting Orangutan. He wore a loud, cheap suit that accentuated his flabby physique and pink skin. He was balding and distinctly middle-aged, and Jeremiah always thought that he was one of the few men on earth who managed to pull-off having a manner less appealing than a travelling salesman selling shower curtains. Arkham would have preferred to be afflicted with a virulent stomach bug than talk for any long period with this man. _No way could this guy have survived an election._

Arkham entered his office as Pearl urged Fields to follow. She asked if he would like a tea or coffee, but Fields curtly refused the offer. After a minute of pointless civilities, Arkham was seated behind his desk and Fields was settled in a seat across from him.

The doctor decided that candour was the best way to get through this conversation as quickly as possible. "I take it that you are here to talk about the asylum's newest patient?"

Fields made no effort to restore the superficial civility of the conversation. "Freeloader, more like. Your 'patient' is no more insane than you or I."

"And how sane is that, Mr. Fields?"

Fields chuckled slightly, though more out of annoyance than amusement. "He's taking advantage of the system, doctor, and frankly I'm concerned that you've allowed him to do so to the extent that he has. You saw him at the trial. There was no mania, no psychosis, just a genius sociopath taking you all for fools."

Arkham had to resist the urge to strangle the attorney then and there. He tried to speak as calmly as possible.

"Mr. Fields, you were the one who recommended the trial incarceration of patient 4479. You said it could not possibly be immediately determined whether a man brilliant enough to, within the scope of a week and with the assistance of less than 40 men, bring an entire city to its knees was in his right mind or not. And, despite the unorthodoxy of the suggestion, I supported you. Everyone supported you. The families of many of the Joker's victims supported you. And now you're trying to tell me that you could have gotten someone as plainly deranged as 4479 into Blackgate Prison because he wasn't running round the courtroom, flapping his arms, chanting 'I'm a Dodo bird'?"

"If you're trying to make out that you did me a favour-"

"But I did, Mr. Fields. I performed for you a massive favour. You were a catastrophe in that courtroom, my friend. Even if you weren't in the shadow of someone as acclaimed as Harvey Dent, you would have still managed to convince an entire jury that, say, _Dean Corll _was just a misunderstood soul who'd been persecuted by an imperialistic, homophobic society. You're an own-goal scorer, Fields, you're just that unlikeable. You walk into a room and you just manage to get under everybody's skin because of that cocky, conservative self-assurance of yours. I've never seen anything like it. If you'd been left a day longer in that courtroom with your vainglorious palaver about pure evil and the terrors of socialism you could have gotten the man a condo in Florida."

Fields just stared into Arkham's eyes for a moment, sizing him up. "That may be true, but I'm not the one with the failing business, Arkham. Right now I have the support of almost every respectable authority figure in this city. I'm the guy who gets to clean up the mess so many before me have only bulked at. And, despite my alleged incompetence in the courtroom, I'm not the one who everybody is now looking at with judgemental eyes. Nobody realises just how much they hate a bad man until they see that he hasn't gotten what he deserves. And the spacious accommodation and, um, catering of this establishment is not what this bastard deserves."

"So you want me to get my people to declare patient 4479 sane and apologise for ever having suggested that he was anything other than that?"

Fields smiled condescendingly, "I want you to do what is right."

Arkham smiled also, condescension even more acute. He grabbed a remote on the far side of his desk and pointed it at a flat-screen television fitted on his wall.

"So would you consider it right-", Arkham said "-to put _this_ man in a hostile environment?"

Arkham switched on the television and automatically a thermal image of a man in a strait-jacket seated in a corner of a padded-cell came up. Fields looked at the screen, recognising the figure in the image all too well. However… he had his makeup on this time.

Arkham spoke again. "This footage was taken two nights ago, his third evening in the asylum."

Fields was clearly confused. "Where did he get that makeup?"

"We gave it to him?"

"You _gave_ it to him?"

"The welfare of patients and staff would have been at risk if we hadn't."

Fields didn't want to know anything further about the matter. He'd probably get to that when he would inevitably start his own interviews with 4479. For the moment, he just watched the patient in the corner. Just kept watching and watching as the patient kept turning and looking toward the camera. Then the feed flickered, and the patient suddenly disappeared. _Where had he gone? Where was he?_ Fields' internal queries were soon answered when that horribly scared visage of anarchy and destruction filled the screen. Its eyes bore into Fields, sizing him up. Then its hands reached out and cut off the image. Afterward, there was only static.

Seeing Fields flinch ever so slightly, Dr. Arkham spoke once more. "You've seen what 'The Joker' can do when he's lucid. Do you even want to imagine what he'll do when half the inmates of your prison try to eviscerate him for nearly blowing them to kingdom come?"

Fields couldn't hide his quiet acknowledgement of Arkham's argument.

"Exactly, Mr. Fields. Exactly."


	2. Therapy Begins

**THERAPY BEGINS**

Dr. Harleen Quinzel tried not to quake, as she turned on the camera. She was acutely aware of him watching her every move. Quinzel took a deep breath to calm herself, and thought, _don't show you're afraid. It will only give him power over you._

Finally, everything was in perfect position. The camera was aimed at the table against the blank white wall, with a single chair resting behind it. Quinzel pressed the record button, and took her seat out of frame. She flipped through her notes, and glanced once at her patient. Still standing there, looking at her. Trying her best to ignore him, Quinzel decided it was time to begin.

"Dr. Harleen Quinzel overseeing patient number 4479, for rehabili—"

He had moved over to the camera, and to her annoyance, began to inspect it, like an impertinent child looking for attention. "Please, don't touch that."

He gave her an exasperated look, as if her usage of please was utterly foolhardy. Quinzel continued, "Just…go over there." She pointed at the chair across from her. He cocked his head quizzically. Quinzel tried again. "Go over there, please."

Finally, to her relief, he left the camera be, and moved behind the table. His movements were deliberate, even antagonistic. He arrived in front of his chair, but did not sit. His fingers drummed on the table slightly.

"And please…take a seat."

The patient finally plopped down onto the chair, and Quinzel watched him briefly gaze balefully into the camera, before returning his eyes to her. Quinzel took a brief second to survey the incredible figure before her.

He was thin, wearing an orange Arkham patient's uniform, with a label saying _AACI 4479 _on the front. His hair was long, unkempt, greasy, and had suffered a green dye job gone terribly wrong. The majority of it was a sickly puke green, but there were still massive blotches of the patient's natural brown hair showing. But his hair was nothing compared to his face.

4479 had the majority of his face covered in messily-applied white facepaint, with many cracks and creases visible from the sloppy application of the stuff. Around his eyes was black paint, creating a ring of darkness that accentuated his menacing gaze. On his mouth was red lipstick, which continued on to cover the hideous Glasgow smile carved into his face. The complete image was the face of Gotham's nightmares…

Quinzel bravely said, "Okay…are you…are you comfortable?"

After a brief moment, in which the patient moved his head in a disconcertingly twitchy manner, he flatly said, "No."

"If you could, please, address the camera for these video sessions…"

4479 seemed to not understand. "Hmm?"

"Address the camera."

The patient's eyes darted briefly from the camera, to her, and back again. Finally, he turned his disturbing face in the direction she desired, and let out a heavy sigh of distaste, as he said, "Hiiiiii…"

Quinzel looked at her notes for a moment, before saying, "Please, state your name for the record."

Suddenly 4479 turned his head back to her, as he said, in that terrifyingly high-pitched voice of his, "Why would I…suddenly…do that now, Harleen?" His tone was deeply agitated.

Quinzel narrowed her brows. He was the first patient she'd ever had address her by her first name. She was determined for him to be the last.

"I would like to keep this completely professional. Please address me as Dr. Quinzel."

4479 instantly retorted, "Well, than _you_ can address _me_…as Mr. J."

Quinzel rolled her eyes, and decided to simply ignore that little quip. "The prisoner suffers from a manic state of depression, with delusions of grandeur, and likely an anti-social personality disorder—"

As she rattled this off, she noticed 4479 muttering under his breath the words, "Manic…grandeur…" as if he disapproved of their usage. Suddenly he snapped, "You make it sound…so simple. And can't we use a term other than the word prisoner? That has all these…negative connotations. As if, someone's trying to keep me here…"

Quinzel crossed her arms over her chest.

The patient continued, "I don't wanna leave. I _like_ it here." He gestured to the ceiling. "Roof over my head, free food…" He then gave her a hungry look. "…and lovely company." 4479 wildly gestured with his hands as he finished, "And I don't have to pay a _cent _for it!"

Quinzel sighed. "We're getting off track."

4479 gave her a look of mock-shock. "There's a track?" He then briefly looked beneath the table, as if expecting to see an actual track, which almost made Quinzel chuckle. She didn't dare do that around 4479, though. Laughter, for a man like him, was practically encouragement to do the evil things he did.

"The first step in your rehabilitation is to understand, and come to terms with the reason you're here."

4479's eyes narrowed. "Terms?"

"That's right."

He hesitated, before saying, "Define your terms. That's the first step of _any_ debate…"

"No, this isn't a debate. This is therapy."

The patient seemed to become even more agitated by that word. "Therapy?" He gestured wildly to the camera. "Look, these, uh, recordings? Are for you to further study. And as a way for me to express my…_inner turmoil._ For the benefit of my mental health. 'Course, you gotta kinda wonder about whoever watches these…and about _their_ mental health. 'Cause I get to people." He pointed at her. "Trust me…"

Quinzel shook her head in disbelief. "You don't think you have some real problems?"

"Well, nobody's _perfect_."

"But I'm not saying you need to become perfect."

4479 growled, "Just something…_different_, than who I am?"

"Well, who you are _is _what got you here…"

4479 proclaimed, "There, ya see? It's never a mistake to be who you are…" He then addressed the camera, as he snarled, "And don't let anyone…tell you otherwise."

"And-and why are you here?"

"I'm a prisoner of war. I got caught behind enemy lines, and they had to take me out of the battle." He then added, almost like an afterthought, "It's only temporary. See, it's a POW's duty, to escape."

Quinzel looked back down at her notes. They couldn't progress like this. She told him such, and 4479 mumbled, "Sorry, puddin'."

She snapped, "Dr. Quinzel!"

He muttered, "Right, sorry, Dr. Quinzel…"

Quinzel took a deep breath. "All right, well then let _me_ be who _I_ am. As a psychologist, it is my job to treat you."

"Your job?" He gave her a wicked grin. "Is that really what's going to define _us?_"

"Well you wanted to define terms…"

"Well, I'm a _complicated_ guy, doc."

Quinzel rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. "Yes, you are. And a challenge to study, that's for sure…"

4479 snapped, "Study?" He leaned back in his chair, putting his back to the wall behind him. "I'm no creature of habit."

"No, I didn't say you were."

She hesitated. Should she really ask him what she felt she _needed_ to ask? Would she just get another cocky reply? Quinzel finally decided to steamroll ahead. "What I want to know…is there a _method_ to the madness?"

There was a brief moment, in which she did not move, and neither did he, as he stared at her. Then, a smile formed on his scarred face, as he leaned forward. He spoke, in a disturbingly aroused tone, "_I like you_. This could be _fun_. Why, you wanna learn?"

Quinzel gulped, and decided to ignore his tone. "People have to do terrible things to be put in here."

"Oh, I agree. Which means…you're not so perfect yourself, hmm?"

She kept going, fighting the bubbling frustration. "In your own words, tell us _why_ you are here."

4479 sighed. "According to…_society_, I've done bad things. Socially unacceptable."

Quinzel decided to try one more time. "In all seriousness, why are you here?"

4479 seemed to contemplate this. He gazed at her, his eyes burning with something she hoped wasn't murderous intent. It was only the two of them in this room, and if he attacked her, the guards wouldn't be able to get inside in time, she guessed.

Finally, he asked, "Seriously?"

She nodded.

He began, "I'm here…because…"

And then 4479 leaned far forward, putting himself across the table, and placing his makeup-covered face only inches from the camera. He snarled, "…I _want _to be here."


	3. Arkham Bound

**ARKHAM BOUND**

The secure wing of the old asylum building was the east end. Before the terrorist attack on the Narrows it had, ironically enough, housed the low-risk patients. Manic-depressives, drug addicts, victims of post-traumatic stress, and a few schizophrenics once rested there, a few of whom admitted themselves voluntarily. Because of the rampant corruption with the judicial system, for a time a lot of low-level street thugs sent to Arkham to avoid jail time were housed here, but this proved too controversial for the shareholders once stories surfaced of the new arrivals abusing the legitimately disturbed patients.

It was also the only section of the asylum that wasn't totally destroyed during the mass exodus of Arkham clientele. While the severe psychiatric cases and the freeloading Mafiosi tore the place down when that large window of opportunity presented itself, the low-risk patients for the most part tried to stay out of trouble. The few who did venture out were sadly never seen again. This meant that when the plans for an 'Arkham Island' were proposed, a space needed to be immediately allocated for the high-risk cases, and the only space in the Narrows that was relatively secure was the non-violent wing of Arkham. Thus, the patients swapped wings as the security team worked round the clock to convert the comfortable surroundings into a high-tech prison.

As was expected of Gotham tradesman, though, the ward wasn't completed until three months after the terrorist attack. Small, makeshift prisons had to be built within the Narrows, sometimes just for individual prisoners. It had been a farce, and security guard Lyle Bolton had rued the day that he had applied for a job here. He should be policing the streets right now, locking up the wretched scum that justice had failed to punish. He had wanted to be a policeman ever since he was a little boy, but he persistently failed the psychiatric evaluation. But Bolton knew that there was nothing wrong with him. They were just afraid of anyone who sought true justice.

Lyle did not have much of an education, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was a bit of an idiot, but he had standards, something he felt the city gravely lacked. He also had strength and stamina, which he had no compunction about using. All he was fit for was the work of an enforcer, and all the city thought he was fit to enforce was a bunch of loonies. With his strained finances, Lyle had no choice but to pursue the opportunity.

In some ways Lyle was glad that he did. He discovered, in that gothic edifice, a truth about mental illness: it was all bullshit. The patients were nothing more than criminals justifying their misdeeds with sob stories and cowardly pantomime. They thought their lack of inhibitions and standards made them victims of an institution that operated without pity and remorse. They claimed their actions were not of themselves but rather a product of a series of tragic occurrences and circumstances that had brought them to this juncture, the point where they finally had to answer for their crimes. Well, Bolton would not let them off so easily. He made sure that every patient in that asylum knew that, despite the presence of all those Ivy-League apologists with their doctorates and caring smiles, this was a prison.

Lyle did not doubt that some of them did see things, hear things, experience things that were not of the ordinary mind, but he always wondered why they hadn't just tried to suppress them. Bolton himself had suffered from severe depression for many years, but he had learned to ignore it. He had learned to cope with his problem and function as a productive citizen. So why couldn't they?

Still, Bolton yearned to clean up the streets of Gotham, and punishing the cowards in mental hospitals just did not quench his overall thirst for justice, even though the job afforded him the opportunity to guard the city's most despicable criminal; the very criminal who was now being guided down the hallway towards him, handcuffed, by one of Bolton's colleagues, a security guard whom Bolton only knew as Steve. He was terrible with last names.

Bolton had been waiting for the pair. He had been tasked to oversee Dr. Harleen Quinzel's latest interview with the psychopath. Lyle unlocked the door to the interview room before grabbing Patient 4479 from Steve and practically shoving him into the room. Dr. Quinzel, glad in her white lab coat and that slightly revealing dress she always wore, was already waiting inside the white room. Bolton undid the prisoner's handcuffs and, per the instructions of Dr. Arkham, left the room. Lyle didn't know why Arkham was so comfortable with leaving Quinzel alone with that maniac, but one thing he did know: it was highly irregular.

Patient 4479 at times seemed almost normal. He had asked to borrow Harleen's spectacles to 'get a few things into perspective', and against every bit of better judgment, she gave them to him. Perched on his nose, Quinzel was alarmed by how much they actually suited his face. Beneath the mania of the jagged make-up, the glasses gave him a vague air of plausibility and even sanity that intimidated Harleen. Take away the make-up and the scars, and he'd been able to pass himself off as a doctor. So what did that make her?

What was worse, she had the sneaking suspicion 4479 had asked for the glasses just to awake within her that inadequacy she was now desperately trying to fight off. Her only consolation was that 4479 was evidently not comfortable wearing them.

She hoped that giving him an item he could use as an improvised weapon would establish a sense of trust between the two. That was, after all, what Arkham wanted. Quinzel was grateful for the opportunity to treat one of America's most infamous men, but she wished that the manner in which she had received the chance to treat him was a bit more dignified. She was there, essentially, because Arkham wanted to impress the shareholders. Pairing the patient with a fresh face made people believe the asylum, as run by the Arkham dynasty, had more to do for the community. Harleen was a publicity stunt, and Jeremiah Arkham had told her in clear terms that if she did not get 4479 to confide in her the most intimate details of his past life within one month, he would fire her.  
Switching on the camera, Harleen cleared her throat. "I'm, um..", 4479 started to take her glasses off, anticipating her request. "I'm going to need those back now."

4479 held the glasses in his hand, his face mischievous and slightly inquisitive. He wondered why she needed the glasses. Her eyes were not the kind he thought needed enhancement. They were perfect as they were. Breathing on one of the lens, he handed the spectacles back to Quinzel. He stared at Harleen for a moment, his eyes boring into her soul, before diverting his attention to a small, open medicine bottle on the table. A single white pill lay dormant beside the bottle.

Harleen spoke for the benefit of the camera. "The patient has agreed to continue these videotaped therapy sessions. I'm now altering medications, taking him off Lithium and putting him on a combination of Depakote and Seroquel."

The patient suddenly leaned forward. "Ritalin this, Ritalin that." He paused, turning to the camera, "If I'd know it was going to be this easy to get free drugs, I'd have done this years ago."

"Why are you saying that into the camera?"

Matter-of-factly, the patient said, "I've got a friend who's gonna put this up on YouTube."

"I don't think that's going to happen."

4479 accommodated Dr. Quinzel's skepticism for a moment, his expression one of innocent calculation.

"We'll see", he said.

Quinzel didn't doubt that the patient had friends inside the asylum. He had friends everywhere. That was what terrified people the most about him, that no matter how many people he killed or how much collateral damage he left, he always somebody else hooked on his every word. If 4479 wanted these video tapes on the web, they would be there in a matter of days. The question was whether 4479 wanted them there at all. _He could just be playing with me…_

"Did I ever tell you that you have lovely eyes?" Quinzel was caught off-guard by this comment. "They go well with the rest of your face. It's not like I wanna _pop_ them out of your skull and carry them round on a keychain."

The atmosphere in the room reached a near apex of awkwardness. The Patient tried in vain to defuse the situation. "It's a compliment."

"_And_ we are off to a bad start today…"

"I'm not a morning person."

Harleen resolved to get the session moving along. "You've been here over a month now. How do you feel about Arkham?"

Patient 4479 ruminated over the question. "It's good. There's just… something missing, keeping it from feeling like home."

Quinzel was tempted to ask _'And what exactly did your home feel like?'_.

"And… how do you spent your days?", she asked instead.

"Mondays I exercise, and Tuesdays I'm here with you. Wednesdays is, uh, pizza day. I like that. And Thursdays I hang out with my pal Carmine Falcone. We talk about politics, the weather, the _moral_ degradation of society… well, at least I do. He usually brings up these anecdotes like 'Scarecrow… Scarecrow…'."

The patient was obviously referring to the patient Carmine Falcone's psychotic mutterings. About a year ago, the infamous crime boss had suffered a total mental breakdown, conveniently after he had been indicted for drug trafficking. It was discovered later that Dr. Crane had caused the breakdown with his fear toxin to stop Falcone from exposing the doctor's own corruption. Though a vaccine had been developed to counteract the inhalant's effects, Falcone's mind had gone untreated for too long and had irreparably descended into the toxin's simulated mania. The 'Scarecrow' – in reality Jonathan's Crane's 'Scarecrow' mask – was the last thing Falcone saw before his mind was destroyed.

The patient continued, "Fridays… I don't like Fridays."

Knowing the answer, Quinzel asked regardless, "And why's that?"

The hatred in 4479's voice was palpable. "That's when that _weasel _from the DA's office bothers me."

Quinzel wondered if the patient didn't know that Fields was actually the acting DA. She was still wondering about it herself.

"Mr. Fields is in charge of the prosecution. He's trying to get you sent to Blackgate Prison by claiming you're faking insanity."

4479 began to think nostalgically of Fields' predecessor. "Hmm, it's too bad Harvey Dent's not around. He knew where I was coming from."

"That's convenient."

"Lucky me."

The patient's attention was suddenly occupied by the medicine bottle. He fiddled with it for a moment, having lost interest in Harleen.

"Then explain to me where you're coming from", said Quinzel in a bid to regain his attention. It worked, perhaps too well, as his eyes began to narrow at her. "Are you faking insanity?"

This was the first time the patient seemed to seriously consider one of her questions. "No, I'm not", he leaned forward. "No I'm _not_."

4479's face twitched ever so slightly. Quinzel was afraid, but this only encouraged her to pursue this line of topic.

She asked, "Then you think you're crazy?"

"That's an interesting question. See, crazy people… don't think they're crazy. They think they're gettin' saner. And so, sane people shouldn't think they're sane, but that they're actually going a little crazy."

Neither party knew if the other bought that conclusion, but what both did know was that they bought it themselves. Quinzel in particular felt no shame in accepting the premise of a madman. After all, sagacity can often be mistaken for insanity.

After a long pause, 4479 spoke again. "I can't go to Blackgate. I just… couldn't handle that."

His tone expressed not so much fear but more a healthy dread, similar to confiding to one's spouse displeasure at having to spend a weekend with the in-laws. Quinzel wondered if that was as 'afraid' as 4479 got. Indeed, if this was 'fear', it certainly wasn't unjustified.

During the 4479's week-long campaign of terror on Gotham City, he had almost redefined the meaning of the word 'fear'. His efficiency and exhibitionism with the art of murder made it pretty clear that he wanted to be a hated and reviled man, which meant that affording him that courtesy just made people feel worse (Quinzel sometimes wondered if the police had simply framed Batman to give the public a chance to hate something in order for them to heal); unless those people were criminals. Unlike everybody else, the Gotham underworld regarded the figure of 'the Joker' as a loud and obnoxious gate crasher at a respectable party who ultimately causes the neighbours to call the police and have them send everybody home.

Though Batman, Dent, and Commissioner (then Lieutenant) James Gordon had initiated the crackdown on organized crime in Gotham, it was 4479 who reminded the public why mob rule was such a cancer on the city. Whilst everybody else feared him, the underworld just despised him. He was the reason that most of them were still in prison, rotting away, while he received prime accommodation and free drugs in Arkham.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason why the mob harboured a bit of a grudge against 4479.

"You can't go to prison… because you tried to kill the majority of the prisoners on the ferry?"

4479, somewhat sarcastically, said, "Actually I was thinking more about my personal safety, what with my delicate features and feathery hair but, good point, I never thought of that."

_I'm sure you didn't_, thought Harleen. _Rig a ferry to blow that contains nearly every criminal in Gotham and of course everything will turn out fine and dandy for you._

"Well then you _do_ care about your safety."

"There's a difference between worrying about personal safety, and being concerned with fifteen guys manhandling you in the shower."

Quinzel was confused by this statement. Surely a fear of assault or even rape was simply an extension of a sense of self-preservation. She wondered if perhaps he meant something else by 'personal safety'. She scribbled the phrase down on her notebook, noting specifically to explore a possible connection between it and a fear of sexual intimacy. Perhaps 4479 was molested or even raped as a child. If he was, she imagined Dr. Arkham would be overjoyed. Fields wouldn't dare harass a victim of sexual abuse – his reputation could not possibly handle the media backlash – which would leave Jeremiah free to use the patient for whatever tactics of shameless self-promotion he had in store.

4479, almost as though reading Quinzel's thoughts, asked, "You think they're gonna build a case just because I wanna avoid that?"

"Your mental evaluation is what's going to decide that. That's why we're having these sessions."

"Well, you're the professional," the patient said facetiously. "What do you think?"

Harleen answered honestly, "Well I don't think a sane person would set fire to a fortune."

The patient started pointing defensively at her. "Now, I only burned _my half_ of the money." He paused for a moment, adopting a less aggressive pose. "The problem was… my half was on the bottom. I didn't think that one through."

"Well, the DA's stance is that you are no different than any other criminal in this city."

4479 looked utterly incredulous. "No different?"

The patient's look seemed to demand an explanation for the almost sacrilegious suggestion.

Quinzel said, "You stole money…"

"I burned it."

"You lied to people…"

"I only told little white lies."

"Destroyed property…"

"I don't think we really _need_ hospitals."

Harleen almost burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of that comment. Luckily, she restrained herself just before she had a chance to register her amusement. _He wants you to laugh, Harleen. You mustn't laugh._

"What about murder?"

The patient just stared at her for a moment. With faint exasperation, he said, "When 'bad guys' murder, they do it because they want to make a profit. Where they get their… emotions involved. It's either about revenge, or it's professional."

Quinzel was afraid of how the patient would respond to this question. "And you _don't_?"

Surprisingly, he considered the question perfectly valid. As such, his answer was rather measured. "No. When I kill… it amuses me."

And that was it. That was the patient's psychology, perfectly encapsulated in one phrase. _'It amuses me'_. No matter how deep Quinzel delved into 4479's head that was always going to be the solution that she would find. Yet she knew that solution simply would not wash with Arkham or any venerable psychologist in the land. 'It amuses me' is practically the mantra of the sociopath, but 4479 simply did not meet the profile of a sociopath. His actions showed as much a will to die as a will to kill, and though 4479 showed definite signs of an anti-social personality, his lack of self-preservation, even masochism, simply was not a sociopathic trait. Patient 4479 just did not make any sense.

Quinzel, frustration taking over, said, "I don't think you care what the outcome is, as long as it 'amuses' you."

"Sure, I do what other criminals do, except I do it wearing clown makeup."

"Yes, but Fields in the DA's office won't be convinced–"

"–Have you ever seen a dead body?"

The room was deathly silent. Harleen barely breathed.

"It's a simple question." 4479 looked long and hard into Harleen's ashen face. She was too young for this. He continued, "I've seen my share…"

"Erm yes, I've seen a dead body."

"I'm not talkin' about the kinds you see at a funeral. That's where they all end up. I'm talkin' about when that… little spark of light…" 4479 lowered his voice, "…_disappears_. And all that's left is an animate object."

4479's voice reverted to its friendly tone, asking innocently, "Have you ever seen one of those?"

Twitching, licking his lips, the patient waited for the petrified Dr. Quinzel to answer. Finally, she said, "No, I haven't."

The patient suddenly picked up the lone capsule beside the medicine bottle. "Stick around with me long enough, I'm sure you'll get your chance."

He shoved the pill into his mouth, audibly crunching it with his teeth. As his jaw moved methodically, almost sensuously, to the tune of his consumption, Dr. Harleen Quinzel tried to pretend that 4479 was not 'getting to' her.


	4. Meet Steve

MEET STEVE

The thin hand of patient 4479 tapped three times on the glass cell looking out into the dark room. He was looking at one man, whom his sources had told him was called Steve. His cold dark stare locked on him. He breathed heavily as he stared and again slowly knocked on the glass cell door. Steve was terrified of the man. And why shouldn't he be? He'd killed so many before him. He was a terrorist. What good would come out of talking to this criminal? Still, the patient stood there, perennially knocking on the glass. Steve brushed his bushy brown hair out of face and began slowly approaching the patient. He stopped about ten feet from the grinning maniac.

"Finally…someone answered," said 4479. He lowered his arms.

Steve looked at the man. Familiarity had not lessened the visceral impact of the patient's face. A deformed mockery of all that is sweet and innocent indeed, an affront to the very notion of laughter itself, 4479's scraggy clown make-up probably affected Steve the most out of everyone else in the asylum.

Steve had had a particularly unfortunate childhood, plagued by debt, drugs, illness, poverty, and psychical abuse by his parents. There was only one aspect of his childhood that he regarded fondly, and that was his time with his grandfather. His parents were in and out of jail a lot, and he'd been through a few fosters homes because of it. None of the families had wanted to make a long-term commitment, though, which was why social services tracked down the father of Steve's mother, who everyone thought had been dead for over a decade. It turned out Steve's parents had simply been lying about the old man's death because of some vague life-long feud; and that for the last ten years, Steve's grandfather had been travelling America as the manager of a circus. Fortunately, Steve's granddad had been more than willing to take custody of his grandson.

It was when he was sitting with his granddad, watching the circus clowns, of which he held the fondest memories. He would always get to sit up front as the clowns engaged in their endearing juvenile antics, and he never tired of laughing, even when he had memorized their act by heart. Laughter, for him, was the one thing that had kept him safe. Even when he had to go back with his parents to Gotham after they had fought passionately in the courts to regain custody of a child they clearly hated, he always remembered to laugh. It's what kept him alive…

He approached 4479, trying to hold back his fear and, more importantly, his hatred.

"Do you need something?" he asked the patient. The creature hopped up with excitement, as if he just remembered why he wanted to call the guard over.

"Yes! It's very important. I have to leave. Right now. I need some fresh air."

"You want out?"

"You're smarter than you look," said 4479. "What do you say? Five or ten minutes. Tops." Steve was utterly incredulous. This was indeed a first.

"How dumb do you think I am?" asked the guard. The patient eyed him suspiciously.

"What's your name?"

"What's yours?", he asked definitely. 4479 looked impressed.

"Oooooh, you're a feisty one. Perhaps you and I should take the night off together?" He licked his lips, "That is, if you're up for a laugh…"

…

As she approached the asylum car park, Dr. Quinzel mediated on how much she hated the mornings. The evenings, whether they marked the end of a productive or unproductive day, at least gave you the sense of accomplishment that came with living through another day in this godforsaken hellhole of a city. The mornings, however, did little more than shove the cold hard reality of life right back in your face. She parked in her designated spot. The sun provocatively shone down on her as she entered the main building. She signed in at reception, pleased to find that she had arrived before both Dr. Strange and Dr. Kavendish. Of course, they would probably convert the accusations of tardiness into glowing commendations of their ability to do a job while fighting against the clock. They were arrogant pricks like that. She overheard Bolton in a corner of the lobby talking to another security officer. Apparently one of the lower risk patients had ransacked Dr. Arkham's office last night.

Quinzel took the elevator to her office floor. She walked down the hallway towards her office. She noticed that the staff had begun to stop staring after her with utter incredulity. They were still no doubt reeling from the very notion of a petite girl who had barely been an intern two years ago now being instated as a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum for a patient with as 'mythical' a reputation as 'The Joker', but the threat of losing their jobs in the face of an acquisition by LexCorp had understandably since dominated their attention.

As Quinzel turned the knob of her plain white office door, she thought about how some people only notice something terribly and indescribably awful after they've stared at it for a full three seconds. The reason why Quinzel thought this was because, lying on her desk, was the motionless corpse of the guard she had only known as 'Steve'. On his head were three things. The first was a sizeable blood-red indentation just above his left ear, from which ran trails of dried blood. The second was an ostentatious red gift bow that had mostly covered the fatal injury; and the third… the third was a gift sticker that simply read:

'To Harleen, From J'.

Quinzel had not screamed. She had known from the moment she took this assignment that it would require her to expect terrible things such as this body behind every corner. Instead, she had simply called Bolton to tell him to lock down the Island and set up a search party for Patient 4479. However, never in Quinzel's wieldiest dreams had she expected that 4479 would still be in his cell at the time the lockdown was ordered. Now she sat in Dr. Arkham's reception as a Detective Allen asked her and Jeremiah a punch of inane questions.

"What time to did you discover the body?"

"8:15 this morning," said Harleen coldly. "Roughly."

"Did you touch or move anything?"

"I know better than that, Detective Allen", she said with thinly-veiled defiance. Arkham gave her a look of extreme displeasure. He did not want Quinzel antagonizing the police after they had already made enemies with the DA's office. Thankfully, the detective seemed understanding of Quinzel's predicament. You don't recover from seeing a dead body overnight.

"I don't mean to offend you, Dr. Quinzel. It's pretty obvious who did this, but I need to follow procedure."

Absent-mindedly, Quinzel had said she understood. All that she could think of now were those cold dead eyes. Lifeless and glassy, Steve's eyes cut into her, his last second of life forever frozen on his face.

'Have you ever seen a dead body? Well, stick around with me long enough…I'm sure you'll get your chance,' 4479's words bounced around inside her head.

Was this what this was all about? He killed a man just to torment her? Why does he do these things? It was then that she saw the small camcorder on her desk.

"…one final question. Have either of you seen the camcorder footage yet?"

Dr. Arkham took the liberty of answering this question.

"No. Considering 4479's proclivity for explosives, we suspected the worst." Allen nodded.

"A sensible precaution. Well, you'll be pleased to know we had the bomb squad scan the camcorder and the results were negative on any type of combustive material."

"May we see the footage, then?"asked Quinzel.

"By all means. He's your patient, after all."

Allen called out to a uniformed policeman in the hallway, who returned about a minute later with a plastic bag that contained the camcorder. He gave Quinzel a pair of latex gloves to put on before handling the camera. Taking the device from the policeman's hands, she turned it on and played the first of the two video files that had been recorded, with Dr. Arkham leaning closer to Quinzel to get a better view of the footage. The face of Patient 4479 filled the small monitor. He whispered into the camera as his unsteady hand continued recording.

"We have to be quiet…" The perspective turned swiftly as he closed the door of the room he had just invaded. "…Because I'm in your office!"

Laughing hysterically, 4479 had then swung the camera around an office… but it was not Harleen's office. She then remembered the conversation she overheard between Bolton and that other man in the lobby that morning. A desk with papers cluttered all over it appeared.

"There's your desk. And your paperwork!" With one swift movement, 4479 had shoved everything off the desk. Beside her, Quinzel could feel Dr. Arkham's blood pressure rising as the monitor then showed the camera turning to a book shelf on the right wall. Several framed photographs lined the shelf. 4479 had made an excited sound as he approached the photos.

"Oh! It's pictures of the family! I can't wait to meet them! You've got some crazy relatives there…"

A famed photograph of a young brunette was suddenly visible, the smile on her face and illumination of the torchlight lending the woman a certain radiance.

"And a lovely picture of your wife. She-", the patient's voice suddenly when silent. Harleen guessed that something about that sentence must hav struck him as odd. The photograph was turned over and then dropped on the ground. His voice trailed as he began rummaging through the fallen paperwork. A hand picked up a name plaque that read in big bold letters:

DR. JERIMIAH ARKHAM.

Getting up from the floor, the patient had then dropped the plaque.

The Joker's final words before closing the camera were, "I'm in the wrong office."

Dr. Arkham was furious with Allen. "Why didn't you tell me he broke into my office?"

"We only just saw the footage ourselves, Dr. Arkham," Allen said. "Besides, didn't you notice that this morning?"

All notion of civility in Arkham's voice had vanished. "I had. Security thought it was one of the lower risk patients causing a ruckus. That sort of thing happens quite a bit around the compound these days. Nothing had been stolen, though. It would have been absurd to think that 4479 had escaped from his cell. His ward is one of the most secured places in the country."

The detective rolled his eyes, almost imperceptibly. Arkham noticed, but he considered himself too much of a gentleman to rebuke Allen. Harleen, having not spoken since the first video had ended.

"Shall we continue?" She asked.

Det. Allen did not look like he approved of a young woman watching whatever was on the second video, but this old-school patronization vanished from his face the moment Quinzel ever so elegantly raised her eyebrow at him. Aware of his blunder, he instead simply smiled at her. She smiled in return. Opening the camcorder again, Harleen braced herself internally for what was to follow as Arkham, still fuming over the fact that one of the most psychotic men on the face of the earth had breached his sanctuary, settled back into his seat to watch the footage with her. The video started much like the last one. The patient opened a door and swung the camera around. Harleen recognized this office. He was in the right one this time.

"Here we go," said the patient. He placed the camera on Quinzel's desk as the patient, wearing a clean white lab coat over his prison uniform, sat in her chair. The mostly dark room hid his face until he leaned back in the chair, making himself comfortable, when the light of a desk lamb revealed it. He looked like a ghost.

"I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing with everything we talked about, and I just had to tell somebody! You're probably, ah, home asleep. Without a care in the world… kinda like Steve," the mad man paused, cocking his head with a little smile. "Who?" he asked the camera. He then disappeared from view. Dr. Quinzel hoped that meant the video was over…but she jumped as the image suddenly showed a corpse hitting her metal desk.

It was the guard.

"This is Steve!" the mad man reappeared, his face alarmingly close to the corpse. Roughly caressing the dead man's hair, he said, "Say hi, Steve." The corpse, as predicted, didn't respond. Yet 4479 waited for it to introduce itself.

What a clown, thought Dr. Quinzel. Eventually, 4479 gave up on his comedy routine.

"He's shy, and not big on small talk. You see, Steve was... kind enough to let me out of my cell for the night," the clown paused and, in a manner not too dissimilar to Detective Allen, rolled his eyes. "He won't be making that mistake again. It took some convincin'. I think he was worried he was going to lose his job. I told him there was no need to worry about that." He gave the body a shove, moving it almost out of frame. The patient sat back down, only this time he propped his feet up on the body. He adopted that familiar philosophical tone that always irritated Quinzel.

"You see, life is, ah … short. Even shorter for some. You'd be shocked how surprised some people get when they find out they're not going to live forever…" The patient leaned forward. "…until one day their face is looking back at them and its old in the mirror." He paused, his face more contemptuous than it was usually.

"Or that they're dying of some terminal disease." He looked lost for a moment, before finally livening up, having remembered his next point. "Oh, or that they're stuck working... in a mental hospital day after day after day. That's why I brought Steve along for the ride. He wanted to see where I was coming from. And, as Steve can show you, a real dead body is a lot different than the kind you see in pictures or on television."

Watching 4479 address her 'second-hand' was no less powerful than anything he could say or do to her directly. For all his skills with guns, knives, and explosives, his greatest weapon was, and always would be, his tongue.

4479 continued, "Of course, what am I saying? You'll know exactly what I'm talking about when you find him on your desk tomorrow morning, long before you ever watch this," The patient paused. "It's my gift to you. A little thank you basket… for all the therapy." He began to eye the body guiltily. "I would have gift wrapped him, but I couldn't find a big enough box. The point is when y-when you see Steve, don't think about me. Think about... mortality. Focus on what you like to do, instead of what they tell you to do. And live each day like it's your last." He smiled cheekily. "Because who knows? It just might be. Right Steve?"

The clown got up from the chair, pushing the whole of Steve's head back into frame. He then placed on Steve's head the large bow and gift tag that Harleen had found on the body. The patient then disappeared from the monitor, laughing softly as the sound of the office door closing signaled the end of the macabre presentation. Harleen had turned the camera off and handed it to Allen, her mind pounding with questions and fueled with rage. She asked Allen, "Was there anything else on that video?"

"We need to have a more thorough look, of course, but after your patient leaves the room, all there is to see is about an hour's worth of footageof your desk chair before the power runs out," replied Allen. Quinzel then turned to Dr. Arkham. "Where is Patient 4479 now?"

"In his secure cell. I had Bolton put him in a straitjacket."

"We need to schedule a therapy session immediately," said Quinzel.

"Have you gone insane as well, Dr. Quinzel?" asked Arkham. "Your patient thrives on rash action. He is in a very violent state at the moment and I think it would be most unwise to grant him an audience until we've assessed the full extent of the damage here."

"The video was a message for me. A message I believe might tether his subconscious. This might be my only chance. Make Bolton come along if you must. But I'm going to speak to my patient," said Quinzel. Before Allen had a chance to place the camcorder back in its plastic bag and hand it back to the uniformed officer, she snatched it from his hand. "And I'm taking this."

Before Allen could protest, she had left the room.

"You do realize Dr. Arkham that Dr. Quinzel technically committed a crime by taking that," said Allen. Arkham sighed.

"Why won't death come?"

Dr. Arkham then raced after her.


End file.
